Puffing on a Spirit Blue, I perch on a bench outside the Magic Castle waiting for valet to deliver my eighties Beamer, having just been dazzled by the wonders within the walls. The place really lived up to it’s name. Despite all the insanity of my life, I’m not a cynic. In fact, I tend to be a believer. That is, until something’s proven otherwise. When a man with shoe polish black hair and a long black coat approaches me with intention and abracadabra’s me with the words, “You’re perfect”… after confirming it’s me he’s referring to, well… I’m all ears. “Thank you?” I respond. “I am a magician. I need an assistant, and you’re perfect for it.” I believe him and this is exactly what I need to hear. This is a time of major disillusionment in my life. I’ve just been dropped from my record label, after my A&R guy was diagnosed with a mystery illness and had to leave for treatment, leaving me in the uncaring hands of indifferent strangers. I’m broken hearted having recently ended an affair with my kinda-sorta married producer who I thought I was in love with. To free myself from this man and his duplicity, I jumped into the arms of a kinda-sorta cheesy rockstar dude who’d been chasing and wooing me for months, with first class flights and Dries Van Noten silk garments. Of course, once I became available to him, he lost interest and left me for a yoga teacher. And the rotten cherry on top of it all; my favorite person on earth is trapped in a hospital bed halfway across the country. My dear Aunt Tawn made a choice when she was diagnosed with Hep C, and warned… to continue drinking would mean death. She decided if she was going down, she wanted to go down partying. The party didn’t last long once she turned yellow with jaundice and had energy for nothing more than sleep, regretfully awaiting a transplant while cancer ate away at her decaying liver. Sickness, ugliness, lies and disappointment abound, I am ready for some fucking enchantment. I give the magician, Rocco, my phone number and agree to be back at the Magic Castle at six am. He is filming a reality show. And now I am too. In the morning, I arrive and I’m introduced to the surprise “celebrity” we are to be doing magic with on this show based on “reality”. His name is Hal Sparks. I vaguely recognize him from the E television network. This is just an additional detail and pretty much irrelevant to the story. Because, while I do have a few small appearances on Celebracadabra, it’s Rocco Silano, a New York magician who hires me as his right wing during his time in LA, for both the show, and his performances a few nights a week at The Castle. He says I make him look good. More legit. All magical men need a pretty girl by their side. And I’m a tall, bleached blonde to boot. I learn there is a shtick and there are tricks but some of the things magicians do are probably genuinely magical, and the secrets to those things will die along with them. I am truly amazed, dumbfounded and baffled on the daily. For my first trick, which is really more of a shtick, I am taught to sprinkle little piles of glitter on my shoulder, and as I saunter onto the stage to introduce Rocco, I subtly turn my head right, then left, blowing on the piles so I arrive in cloud of fairy dust. Rocco has also invented a fake thumb that slides on over your regular thumb with a tiny LED light on the end that illuminates when pressed so it appears you are plucking tinker-bells out of thin air. After a few days of these types of gimmicks, I am ready to graduate to something greater. Several white cardboard packages arrive. Rocco takes me into a small bathroom, backstage at the magic castle and closes the door behind him. It’s boiling hot, un-air-conditioned, and his proximity and animal smell puts me on high alert. I hold my breath as I wait for his unwanted move. I’m relieved when he slits the tape on the top of the box, and twenty or thirty actual, living Monarch butterflies fly out, dancing all around us in the tiny bathroom. I am awestruck. He then straps a long, silver contraption on my arm, like a cigarette case, that flips open when a lever is pulled by my finger. After explaining how it works, he removes the contraption and sets it on the counter. He shows me how to catch the butterflies, gently by the wing, one at a time, and lay them flat in the trap, shutting its door quickly so they stay put. “Wait a minute, just a minute!” I say. “This is going to kill them! You’re not supposed to touch butterfly wings!” I am even more freaked out than if he had made that move I was expecting. “Oh, no that’s just a myth people tell children so they don’t try to catch butterflies. It’s totally fine. Their wings are much stronger than they seem. And they only live for a day anyway.” Men will say anything to get their way. And I will believe anything. Before you come at me, I was young, naive, and there was no google on my phone, or anything like that. And the trick I was being told to perform did seem pretty cool. Also, I was his employee, this was a job, and I learned from my youth in the modeling industry to suck it up and be professional. So, Rocco leaves me to my sweaty, stress inducing work of catching the butterflies, one at a time, and ever so gently slamming their tiny winged-bodies into my silver cigarette case contraption for that evening’s show. Behind the velvet curtain I wait, wearing a little black dress with a kimono draped over my shoulders. Up my sleeves, the cases are locked and loaded. The spotlight flashes on, someone tells me to go, and I walk onto the stage, trying to do my best Vannah White, while gracefully flinging my arms out to my sides, pulling the trigger and releasing the winged creatures. The audience’s faces glow with wonder and approval as butterflies fly from my sleeves and over their heads, and the words, “Introducing, the great Rocco Silano,” fly from my mouth and into their ears. I am hooked. I meet all the other magicians who work at The Castle, and feel half delighted, half insulted when a man with a rabbit in a hat tries to poach me, asking how much Rocco is paying me. I tell him and he withdraws, saying he can’t compete. Rocco does take good care of me. Another dude with greasy, gray, receding hair and a cape tries to steal me away as his assistant, but I remain loyal. Sometime during these weeks, I receive a call that my aunt is not doing well. She is declining faster than she is moving up the liver list. I fly on a plane to Minneapolis to visit her. I am shocked by her appearance. She’s stick thin, but bloated as if she’s been pulled from the bottom of a river. Her skin and eyes are the color of dehydrated urine. I sit by her bed and hold her puffy hand even though I’m afraid to touch her. I tell her about my messy life with all the men, and the magic, and Rocco, and the butterflies, and I do my best to make her laugh. For as long as I’ve been alive, she’s always been there, at the drop of a top hat, when everyone else seemed to be unavailable. Now, in an effort to return her love and devotion, I stay with her for as long as I can, tidying her home, trying to get her to eat, and after doing her laundry, I fold her socks which appear unnaturally tiny in my long fingered hands. I still can’t look at socks without crying, and around my house, I still wear a pair of wool ones I took from her home, after she died. They are full of holes and memories. Back in LA, Rocco takes me to dinner at Lawry’s prime rib. He insists I order the prime rib and not a filet, like I want. He makes me get my own, rather than sharing, even though it will take me weeks to eat this massive portion of cow. He has shown me nothing but kindness, in a very paternal way, even though he’s pretty misogynistic and I often feel uncomfortable around him. At this point, I still don’t know he lied about the butterflies and won’t really think about it or figure it out for many years to come. Or maybe I knew in my heart, turning a blind eye, like I often did with men, to the detriment of my once delicate self, and many innocent butterflies. He is leaving Los Angeles soon, and I’m surprised when he invites me to join him in Japan. He wants me to always be his magical assistant. I tell him I’ll consider it. Later that night, I remember I have plans and goals of my own. Japan feels too real, too big a commitment, taking me away from my life… though at the moment in shambles, I know I’ll figure it out. It takes a long time, but eventually, I do. *** My aunt Tawn is Monarch butterfly now. She is all of the Monarch butterflies. Only as I write this do I realize the timing of her death and my butterfly torture story coincide. It’s terribly cliche to consider a dead loved one a butterfly. I know this. It doesn’t matter. She just is. On the phone with my father, he reminds me of a time when I was a little girl and accidentally touched the wing of one of these mystical creatures in an arboretum. An evil woman working there noticed and shamed me, telling me it was as good as dead, mutilated due to my mistake. Millions of tears were shed. A lifetime of guilt lay ahead. I must have blocked it out cause I sure as hell didn’t learn my lesson. Not that day, at least. Now I know this: It’s all an illusion. Magic. Death. Life. Butterflies. And everything is intertwined, in effect, The Butterly Effect. The real trick is to not get disillusioned. Today, I step outside my front door and a monarch flutters past me. I think of Tawn, and her choice: pleasure in the present, missing the bigger picture. Just this week, I’ve caught a little heart fluttery feeling for another seemingly unavailable man. I forgo instant gratification and let it go, released back into the wild. I won’t trap this one in my net, bathroom, or silver cigarette case. Instead I’ll write, focus on my own shit, and wait to see what flies to me and lands, all on it’s own. I’m not meant to be a magical assistant, side kick, side piece or the sweet thing on someone’s arm. Maybe I’ve finally learned my lesson. I’m the main event. And I still believe in magic. Maybe more than ever. P.S. I’m pretty sure I’ve closed another story on this Substack with a similar believing in magic line. That’s okay though, cause it’s true. Also… Holy Shit. I cannot believe this clip. I found it after I wrote this piece. Guess my memory serves me well! Still, hard to believe this is real…  You’re currently a free subscriber to Neon Cowgirl . For only six bucks a month, you could upgrade to paid!
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